Page 31

“Well …,” Dominic began the conversation.

“Well, what?” Lucifer snapped, driving onto the road and into the traffic erratically.

“When were you going to tell me I had yet another brother?”

“When I wanted you to fucking know.”

Dominic could tell by his voice that, if he hadn’t been driving, he would have slapped the shit out of him. However, the truth was obvious; Lucifer was clearly just as taken aback as he was, not over the fact that he had another son, but that his biggest enemy had taken him in.

“Why didn’t you want him?” Dominic asked, looking down at his hands that were beginning to shake. He didn’t think he’d every truly understood his sick father and why he did certain things. “You wanted fucking soldiers, but you let him rot on the street?”

“His mother was a whore!” Lucifer roared back. “It could have been any man’s!”

“Pull over,” Dominic said, feeling bile rise. “Pull the fuck over!” he yelled again when his father didn’t stop, reaching over to abruptly turn the wheel. They swerved off the side of the road.

“What the—”

Lucifer hit the brakes and slammed the car into Park when Dominic jumped out of the car.

Leaning over, vomit spewed from his mouth as he barely made it out of the car.

All day he’d had to watch his father’s joy that the Carusos’ boss’s wife had been laid to rest after being tragically murdered. And now this shit? In his mind, he kept replaying all the fucking times he had passed by Sal living on the street, wanting to give him change or the couple of dollars he’d had in his pocket, yet he never did. Because he used that money to buy Kat something to help with her boredom, being stuck in the basement, or to buy Angel and Matthias a pack of donuts in the morning at the gas station if they ran out of cereal. Not knowing each time he did, he’d denied his own goddammed brother.

“Are you throwing up?” Lucifer’s face and voice leeched with disappointment when he came around the car to see him hurling. “Since when did I raise such a pussy!”

“I ate leftovers of DeeDee’s shitty cooking this morning, and it must’ve given me food poisoning,” Dominic quickly lied, thankful when his father believed him.

Wiping his mouth off with the back of his hand, he stood straight, facing his father. “You knew he was your son; admit it.”

“I did,” Lucifer finally admitted without remorse. “But it wasn’t until after he was born and I saw his eyes that I knew.”

“Then why didn’t you bring him home?” Dominic asked, confused. Raising an army to take back the city was his father’s whole purpose.

Lucifer was silent, clearly thinking until he just came out with it. “His mother was Blue Park’s biggest whore! I didn’t want anyone to know I had slept with her.”

Sal’s mother hadn’t been a whore; the disgusting men who had pulled up to her on the street corner and paid to sleep with her were.

Taking a step closer to him, Dom pointed a finger at him angrily. “So, you let your son rot on the street for years rather than let the world know you had to pay for sex?”

This time, the fist that came at his face, Dominic wasn’t allowed to catch. Literally and figuratively, he had to take it on the chin or his punishment would be worse.

Dominic spat out the blood that filled his mouth into the grass, still waiting for Lucifer to answer his question.

“Yes,” his father finally answered coldly.

Dom was quiet at first, staring at his father blankly, until he threw his head back in laughter.

“What the fuck are you laughing at?” Lucifer hissed. “That I fucked a prostitu—”

“No.” Dominic’s chest still boomed with laughter, but it turned sinister the more it went on until he completely stopped. Looking into his father’s black eyes, Dom gave him the same creepy smile he’d seen all day. “I think it’s funny that the one son you had nothing to do with … ended up being your greatest creation yet, and you led him right into the arms of your enemy.”

The fist that met his face brought him a deep sleep …

Running down the block, he finally made it, bending over to catch his breath.

Lucifer watched as he got out of his car.

Talking through a heavy breath from having to run across Blue Park, Dominic didn’t understand why his father couldn’t have just picked him up. “What was the rush that you needed to meet here so fast? I was—”

“I don’t give a fuck what you were doing. You do what I want when I want,” his father hissed.

Dom bit back what he really wanted to say. It was becoming harder and harder to tolerate Lucifer.

Lowering his eyes to his scuffed shoes, Dom hid the burning thoughts of wanting to take his brothers and Kat and disappear. Freedom from Lucifer and the tyranny he imposed on them beckoned him to start raising enough courage to take his life and those of his siblings in his own hands. He had been creating an escape plan, if it came down to it. After the funeral, Dom was slowly coming to the realization that he might have no option but to run away from his own destiny.